Tuesday, April 26, 2016

Stuart Hodgson (1924-2015), territorial commissioner

Stuart Hodgson dodged Nazi U-boats on
frigid Arctic convoys before battling Communists within his union as
he organized loggers on both coasts of Canada. Later in life, he
built a distinguished career as a public servant, most notably
serving as the first resident commissioner of the Northwest
Territories.

A towering man with large, rough hands
and a booming voice, he displayed a good-humoured enthusiasm that
verged on the comical. The New Yorker writer Edith Iglauer once
described him as a “supersalesman for the North (who) always talks
in exclamation marks.” The Inuit knew the jolly, mustachioed
commissioner as Umingmak — musk ox.

Mr. Hodgson, who has died at
91, was also a founding signatory of the New Democratic Party. Mentored by NDP Leader Tommy Douglas, he received his northern
appointment from Liberal Prime Minister Lester Pearson, befriended
his successor Pierre Trudeau, and, later still, served in several public administration roles in British Columbia with appointments
from Social Credit Premier Bill Bennett.

Stories by and about Mr.
Hodgson are legion, perhaps the best known involving the union leader
being approached about becoming commissioner by Mr. Pearson.

“But I don't know that much about
government,” Mr. Hodgson protested.

“That's why I'm sending you,” the
prime minister replied.

The commissioner exercised one-man rule
over a vast swath of the North American continent, a
sparsely-populated expanse of 1.25 million square miles, a third of
the Canadian land mass. His instructions were to begin a process
leading to self-rule by northern residents.

His administration coincided with a
growing rise of militancy among younger native leaders and the
commissioner earned criticism for his authoritarian approach to
governance. As commissioner, he was a force unto himself, combining
the roles of premier and lieutenant governor, as well as legislative
speaker. “I am the government,” he once told a reporter. At the
same time, he insisted his every edict was issued with the interests
of the territorial population in mind. “I have 34,000 bosses,” he
once said.

Eager, gregarious, though unfamiliar
with the Arctic except for his brief wartime experience, Mr. Hodgson
was a superb choice for the transitional period. “I had gone north
as a tourist, I suppose, looking for adventure and I returned home as
someone who realized the enormous potential there,” he wrote in an
unpublished memoir. He promoted tourism and mining, and established a
civil service in the territory. He also found a lingering acrimony
amongst northerners towards their southern rulers. The federal
Department of Northern Affairs and Natural Resources, known as DNANR,
was referred to by northern residents as the Department of No Action
and No Results. The commissioner pushed the territory towards
self-rule. In this role, he was on occasion referred to as one of the
last fathers of Confederation.

In his years in the north, he
befriended commoner and royalty alike, from hunters on the frozen
tundra to Prince Charles, who invited Mr. Hodgson to his wedding to
Lady Diana in 1981. “I've always looked upon him as a friend,”
Mr. Hodgson told Angela Mangiacasale of the Globe. “To think of all
the millions of people he must have met, it's nice to know he feels
the same way.” In the end, Mr. Hodgson had to send his regrets,
missing out on what became known as the wedding of the century.

Stuart Milton Hodgson was born in
Vancouver on April 1, 1924, a second son for Mary Louisa (née Allen)
and Allan Jay Hodgson, a labourer at plywood mills on the Fraser
River. The boy, who would grow to a strapping 6-foot-2, began working
in the mills at age 15, taking a full-time job when he quit high
school after completing Grade 11.

With war waging around the globe, he
joined the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. He served as an
anti-aircraft gunner aboard HMCS Monnow, a frigate which escorted a
convoy to the Arctic port of Murmansk in the Soviet Union. Mr.
Hodgson and another gunner were credited with shooting down a German
combat plane off the Norwegian coast. At war's end, a boarding party
from the frigate accepted the surrender of a German U-boat.

Mr.
Hodgson returned to the West Coast and the mills, becoming an
activist in the International Woodworkers of America. The enemy then
was not so much the bosses but rival trade unionists seeking to
affiliate the woodworkers with a Communist union. “A vicious
fight,” he once described the struggle to Jamie Lamb of the
Vancouver Sun. “Fist fights. Shotguns. That sort of thing.”

In
1951, he married Pearl Kereluk, a secretary originally from Hairy
Hill, Alta., whom he had met when she asked him for a light for her
cigarette.

Mr. Hodgson's faction prevailed and he
became a prominent figure in British Columbia trade union circles. In
1959, he was dispatched to Newfoundland to support what became a
bitter, bloody loggers' strike. The death of a policeman during a
brawl in the town of Badger and the subsequent incendiary words of
Premier Joey Smallwood provoked a mob to seek out Mr. Hodgson at his
hotel in Grand Falls. The organizer arrived shortly ahead of the
vigilantes only to find the innkeeper had tossed his possessions into
the snow.

As Mr. Hodgson frantically tossed his
clothes back into a suitcase, a passing cab driver asked what
happened.

Fell on the ice, he explained, and the expletive
suitcase popped open.

Mr. Hodgson took a seat in the cab, eager to
make his escape.

The driver was in no hurry.

“There's
a mob comin’ our way and the word is they're going to hang a guy,”
the cabbie said in a Newfoundland brogue. “That ya might like to
see it.”

The mob was spotted coming over a hill towards the
hotel.

Mr. Hodgson, seeking to not betray his identity, not to
mention his urgent desire to flee, politely asked if there was a way
to avoid being caught in the jam.

As they drove down side streets,
the driver asked what brought the stranger to town.

“I'm a shoe
salesman,” he lied. “But, you know, business is bad. I'm having a
hard time moving any product.”

“Well, there's a strike on,”
the driver explained.

The cabbie later realized the identity
of his passenger, whom he ordered out and left abandoned on the side
of the highway. Mr. Hodgson and other union leaders eventually made
their way to a deserted barracks at Gander airport where they hid for
several days before seeking to leave the island. They tried to buy
tickets on a flight to Ottawa, but the agent balked. “Not for you
fellas,” he said.

Meanwhile, word got out about the union guys
being at the airport and a small but noisy group pursued them through
the concourse.

An alert Pan American Airways agent
quickly got the men onto a trans-Atlantic flight that happened to be
stopping in Gander to refuel.

Mr. Hodgson wound up sitting in the
front of the plane, where he convinced a stewardess to leave him a
bottle of Crown Royal. It was only once he was in the air that he
realized he did not know his destination. He was never so happy as
when he landed in New York.

An activist with the social democratic
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, Mr. Hodgson and his union
played a central role in the creation of the NDP following the
debacle of the 1958 federal election. But he soured on the new party
after it failed to make a breakthrough in the subsequent campaign. He
accepted a Liberal appointment to serve as a territorial
commissioner. In 1967, as commissioner, he led two chartered
propellor planes filled with bureaucrats and office furniture, as
well as one civil servant's pet skunk, to the small mining town of
Yellowknife, where the territory capital was established after
decades of rule from far away Ottawa. The new government offices were
temporarily located in a school, a curling rink and a bowling alley.

Mr. Hodgson's tenure coincided with
times of great change in almost all aspects of life in the North. The
commissioner appointed Abe Okpik to head Project Surname, restoring
to the people traditional surnames that had been replaced by the
federal government with a series of numbers placed on disks like dog
tags. A distinctive polar bear-shaped license plate was adopted in
1970 as part of centennial celebrations for the territory. The
inaugural Arctic Winter Games were held that year, a brainchild of
Mr. Hodgson's after he despaired at the poor showing local athletes
made when facing southern competition.

In 1975, he relinquished his authority
to an elected council, an important evolution on the path towards
self rule.

On April 16, 1979, Prince Charles journeyed to
Yellowknife to officiate at the opening of the Prince of Wales
Northern Heritage Centre, a $5-million museum and archive which
served as a showpiece for Mr. Hodgson's desire to boost tourism. The
commissioner had also commissioned American artist Arnold Friberg,
known for his monumental set designs for Cecil B. DeMille's “The
Ten Commandments,” to paint a life-sized portrait of the
Prince.

Mr. Hodgson soon after left the north to serve as chairman
of the International Joint Commission, which handles issues involving
shared water boundaries with the United States. This was followed by
a term at the helm of the BC Ferries and, later, as head of BC
Transit. Mr. Hodgson then served as citizenship judge until his
retirement in 2005.

He was invested in the Order of Canada
in 1971 for his role in labour relations and as commissioner. Pearl
Hodgson received the Order herself three years later for her
volunteer work in the north. As well, Mr. Hodgson was made a
commander in the Order of Dannebrog by Queen Margrethe of Denmark.

Mr. Hodgson died in Vancouver on Dec.
18. He leaves a son, a daughter, and five grandchildren. He was
predeceased by his wife.

In his time as commissioner, Mr.
Hodgson tried to visit every hamlet in the territories at least once
a year. The commissioner carried a rifle and sometimes a sidearm, but
did not shoot game either for sport or sustenance. He was asked in
one settlement why he did not hunt. It was reported he said his wartime exploits
included shooting down the German plane. While most of the crew were
rescued, one young man had died. For Mr. Hodgson that was enough
death to last a lifetime.

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About Me

Tom Hawthorn is a freelance newspaper and magazine writer who lives in Victoria, B.C. He writes a twice-weekly column for the Globe and Mail, Canada's national newspaper.
He is finishing a book about the war experiences of the McGill University football team. It is titled, "A Greater Share of Honour."